Entries Tagged 'Elections' ↓

So there is a lot of talk about transparency as a candidate for city council but little action. While the blog up North wants to rip on Stehly for a tiny donation from a well known Democrat, there has been little mention of Jensen getting endorsements and donations from two well known Democrats, Jack Billion and Scott Heidepreim. I will commend the Count for at least talking about it.

But what is startling is the lack of transparency on his financial report. You spent all this money on ‘advertising’ but didn’t break it down? How much on consulting, meals, TV ads, Social Media, radio, publications, postage, printing, etc.

So why is this? I think he hired the blogger up North to run the whole campaign. So no one knows how much money is being made and where it is being spent.

The way one runs a campaign is comparable to how they will govern. If you can’t even tell us how much you spent on stamps, how can we trust you as an elected leader? We can’t. There is a lot of people running a cottage industry from making money from suckers like Jensen, and the ring leaders are cashing in. I took very little in when running 4 successful campaigns. Why? Because I believed in them and didn’t care about the payola.

And for the record, I have received NO money from the Stehly campaign and the only consulting I had with her was contentious conversations about how she was doing it wrong. That is why I respect Big ‘T’ because I can have disagreements with her and it is water under the bridge. I don’t owe her a damn thing, and she doesn’t owe me.

Jensen is running a ‘big money’ campaign not because he wants to win but because he is lining the pockets of those who are supposed to be helping him. It is pathetic, disgusting and the reason why politics have become so gutter.

While I have my issues with Theresa sometimes, I would NEVER question her intentions, integrity or looking at the bigger picture. Theresa could give ‘two-sh*ts’ about what it takes to win a campaign, she learned from the best of them (Staggers) that it is about human contact and connecting with constituents, you can’t put a price tag on that. That’s why I think she will pull this off. Trust me it will be close, but I know who her supporters are, and they vote. If she loses, oh well, it will only fortify that scheming and scamming is the only strategy that gets BAD candidates elected.

I had to chuckle a little bit about Paul’s concern;

A candidate for State’s Attorney is accusing his competitors of violating residency requirements for living outside of Minnehaha County.

Paul Bengford, an assistant city attorney for the city of Sioux Falls pursuing the county’s top prosecutor’s job, this week took to radio airwaves and reporters’ inboxes calling on two others in the race to suspend their campaigns because they have residences in Lincoln County.

“Crystal Johnson and Daniel Haggar have broken faith with voters by filing petitions falsely claiming each has a primary residence in Minnehaha County,” Bengford said in a news release Wednesday.

First of all, it is completely legal to be the Minnehaha State’s Attorney and live in another ‘adjoining’ county. Marty Jackley served in a county he did not live in. But the concern really made me chuckle, because Bengford has been an attorney with the City of Sioux Falls for several years and has never said anything about the massive amount of city employees who don’t live in Sioux Falls or pay property taxes here. For example one of the city attorneys lives in Madison, our Fire Chief lives in Canton (he told councilors when he was appointed to the job that SF wasn’t a safe place to raise kids) and our Library Director lives in Minnesota. I think I was told once about a third of the city’s employees don’t live in Sioux Falls. I have often recommended that at least management and directors have a requirement to live in the city they serve, especially someone who works in public safety like our Fire Chief. Many councilors have told me they were not really concerned about it, so no ordinances have been proposed. It is pretty obvious Bengford is just trying to make this into a political football. Remember, Paul was the city attorney who went after Cameraman Bruce for a raspberry bush in his fenced off back yard as a public nuance. Bengford lost that case and many other code enforcement cases. Not only is Paul not qualified to be State’s Attorney, he barely is qualified to be a city attorney.

Vote for Crystal Johnson.

I also chuckled about Daniel Haggar defending his residency. His sister Jenna was rumored to be living out of state with her husband while serving her last year in the legislature. The legislature was asked to investigate the claims, but nothing was ever done about it. She resigned after the session was over.

“I am impressed with Julian Beaudion’s decade of law enforcement service and his commitment to helping citizens throughout our diverse community. These priorities along with his business experience will make him a perfect addition to the Sioux Falls City Council. With your support, I look forward to serving alongside Julian and making sure every neighborhood is represented on the Council!”

City Council member Janet Brekke is a former small business owner and long-time Sioux Falls City Attorney, serving under five different mayors.

Brekke’s endorsement is significant, given her unique position as a current City Council member and her significant role in shaping Sioux Falls city government over the last few decades! Thank you Janet!

Please remember to vote on Tuesday June 2, 2020. You can vote early by visiting 220 W. 6th St to cast your vote.

Learn more about my campaign, please visit my website atJulianForSiouxFalls.com

#Endorsement #Julian2020 #ForYouForUs #Vote

Greg has stabbed a lot of people in the back over the last four years, not only myself who helped him get elected in the first place, laying out his campaign marketing strategy, but many citizens along the way. Let’s look at Greg’s supposed record of leadership.

• Voted for property tax increases all four years on the council. He claims to have been the champion of killing the cable tax hike, but I didn’t have a problem with it because cable is a luxury, affordable housing is not.

• His reversal on the administration building. This was the first time Greg started to show his true colors. The building was not needed, and originally Greg knew this, but apparently someone got him in a dark corner and gave him a titty twister. The taxpayers are also holding the bag on the HVAC replacement.

• Greg slipped out of ethics violations by getting the Ethics Board to play legal tricks with the charter. Greg also has violated ethics by continuing to attack his fellow councilors in private emails (I have seen them-they are nasty and childish) on FB and in public meetings.

• Greg didn’t do an extensive search for an internal auditor though the audit committee asked him to.

• But Greg’s biggest folly is supporting the Bunker Ramp. To this day, he has yet to apologize for the fiasco. He defended the developers, he defended the pricetag, and he defended both mayors on this disastrous project. Anybody who would continue to defend this is NOT fit to lead.

Like I have said before, I don’t know much about his opponent Julian, but I do know as a State Highway Patrolman (recruiter) Julian must always work with the highest level of transparency and integrity, because if he lacked these things, he would have been unemployed years ago. The best part about this choice, is that by NOT voting for Greg, we will actually get someone who is qualified.

A certain Republican blogger who lives 40 minutes north of us runs a campaign consulting and marketing business, the one he was running while working as Deputy SOS (which he had to ultimately quit because of the conflict). He apparently has been helping with marketing materials for Count Jensen. Yesterday around 40,000 (an estimate) Republicans in Sioux Falls got a mailer promoting Jensen and other Republican primary candidates. Many candidates who have advertised in the rag were told this was going to be a positive campaign mailer. They were misled. Some Republican candidates were also snubbed and not allowed to be in the mailer. Several of the candidates have actually reached out to Stehly apologizing and explaining to her how they were misled. While there are many positive stories in the mailer and ads there is a huge hit piece on Stehly. They even lied about her employment.

The sad part about this is that Stehly has been a life long Republican who essentially has been stabbed in the back by her party, mostly by that guy up north, sadly, in a non-partisan race.

If I were any of the candidates who paid to be in this piece of garbage mailer, I would ask for my money back.

I have never understood why the city races have become more and more partisan over the past few years – oh that’s right, because we continue to elect partisans.

If I was Stehly the first thing I would do next Wednesday morning is register Independent and tell the Republican party to go fly a kite!

I know I have posted about this before, but Alex’s record in the legislature is NOT that stellar. He voted for the highest tax increase in the history of the state which hasn’t helped the teachers one iota and has actually made food and utility costs go up even more, he voted against gun safety laws and voted for the transgender bill. If this is his ‘supposed’ great record in the legislature, I’m not sure if I would want someone like that. I also question his experience, while his opponent has spent well over 14 years being involved with public service (ran for council 3 times, served 4 years and managed two successful petition drives) his total political experience has been 40 days in the legislature. Heck, he has spent more time running for office than actually serving in office. As I have said before, Alex is a nice guy, but he certainly isn’t qualified to serve on the City Council, and this is the main reason he was picked to be a patsy, they wanted another rubber stamper that would work very little and ask very few questions.

I also find the endorsement of the former governor interesting. First off, Denny was the biggest donor ($10K) to Alex’s $85K war chest. Secondly, Denny doesn’t even live in Sioux Falls, he lives in Garrettson. And thirdly, I’m not so sure I would want a person who was involved with two major corruption scandals (EB-5 and Gear Up) to endorse me. It’s kind of like saying, “I know I was crooked, but hey, Alex is a good guy, somebody like me should know.”

Lastly let’s bring up the ridiculous amount of money that has been raised to get Alex elected. Raising this kind of money to run for a seat that pays $19K a year should tell you something. Alex’s support doesn’t come the average Joe, it comes from the monied elites in town. What do you think his agenda will be if elected?

I’m not even sure what Stehly has spent, I haven’t assisted her this time around, but if I had to guess it was probably about 10% of what Alex has spent.

I would have given this race easily to Stehly before Covid hit, but I’m not sure who will win at this point, it is anybody’s game. The incumbent of course usually has the edge, but with a primary involved it could be a different game. I encourage everyone to vote for Stehly. But if she loses, we know there is only one reason why . . . MONEY! MONEY! MONEY!

A voter pointed this out to me today when they got their absentee ballot in the mail, this note was included. Someone can assist you with your absentee ballot if you unsure about an issue or candidate, especially in the security of your home. Every election I get numerous friends asking me how to vote on issues and candidates and I always help.

Monday May 18th, Downtown Rotary Forum • At-Large Candidates Stehly and Jensen • Online at NOON.

Thursday May 21st, Council Candidate Forum • All candidates • 5:30 PM

Tuesday May 26th, Argus Leader • At-Large Candidates Stehly and Jensen • 10:30 AM.

There was a SF Chamber Committee private forum this past week and I spoke with someone who was in attendance. They basically said, ‘Theresa crushed it!” They also said Jensen knew very little about city government. Shocker!

My endorsements haven’t really changed;

• Vote NO on both Charter Amendments

• Stehly for At-Large. Like her or not, she has the best interest of the citizens at heart. She is also a champion of transparency.

• Julian Beaudion for NW district. Neitzert has been a turncoat.

• Cynthia Mickelson for school board. I know this may shock some people, but I think she has tried to open the school district up to more transparency. I don’t always agree with her, but I think she really works hard and tries to do the right thing.

• Crystal Johnson for Minnehaha State’s Attorney.

I also encourage everyone to absentee vote either by mail (complicated and they are way behind on applications) or in person at the election center, directly east of the Minnehaha County Administration building. I voted a week ago, brought my own pen, and I was the only one there. As I was leaving I soaked my hands in hand sanitizer by the door.